Mahama's Team Replies Otabil: NDC Did No Wrong...Your Sermons Are "Commercially Available"

The John Mahama 2012 Campaign Team has impliedly told Dr. Mensah Otabil, General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), that his entreatment to President John Mahama to rise up and speak on the issue of a controversial tape recording in which he (Otabil) is heard ridiculing the New Patriotic Party's free SHS campaign policy is misplaced. The renowned man of God, on Monday, described as mischievous, immoral, Machiavellian, and evil the use of his preachings which he claimed had been doctored and manipulated for political gain by some NDC members and urged President John Mahama to act on the matter because �the perpetrators of these blatant acts of impunity are largely affiliates and surrogates of your party.� ��the sound bites that have been played with my voice have been taken totally out of context; in some cases phrases from different messages I have preached over the years with no relationship to one another have been mischievously pieced together to create the impression that I was making a current contribution on the ongoing political debate,� the founder and leader of ICGC said. But in a sharp riposte, the president�s campaign team, in a press statement signed by the Communications Director, Hanna Tetteh, said there is nothing wrong in what they have done since �Dr. Mensa Otabil's past sermons are available in the public domain and further that some of these sermons are commercially available for sale�. She also pointed out that just as he (Otabil) cannot be held responsible for the �expressed opinion's or moral actions of even his Pastor's, or other officials of the ICGC� or congregants, so also it is an �over-simplification to try to hold the President directly responsible, or ask him to call to order, any individual or group of individual's who may or may not have sympathies with the NDC and who are making information that is easily accessible available in the public domain�. �To the extent that any of Dr. Otabil's statements in the public domain are indeed statements that have been previously made by him, and are available in the public domain we fail to see how quoting statements that one would assume were statements of principle, have suddenly become the work of evil people who are surrogates and affiliates of the NDC,� President Mahama�s campaign team said. Read below the full statement.